Russia's RDIF sovereign wealth fund said on Thursday it had completed a joint deal with the Russia-China Investment fund and a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund to acquire a 9.53 stake in Russian mining company Intergeo.
Intergeo, a part of Onexim Group, which manages the assets of Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, is developing its Kingash deposit in Russia's Krasnoyarsk region and Ak-Sug deposit in the southern Siberian Tuva region.
RDIF said it and its partners were joining the project and that total investments aimed at developing the fields and constructing associated infrastructure would exceed 178 billion roubles ($2.72 billion).
Kingash, Russia's second largest nickel deposit, is expected to start production in 2024, while Ak-Sug, one of Russia's top-5 copper reserves, is expected to start in 2023, RDIF said.
RDIF said in January it was planning to set up a new company to supply base metals to China from an existing deposit that had been untapped for a long time.
($1 = 65.4566 roubles)
(By Anastasia Lyrchikova, Polina Ivanova and Tom Balmforth; Editing by Jane Merriman and Kirsten Donovan)